When it is desired to clean a floor surface, it is known to use maintenance items that have on their “cleaning” bottom surface a textile made up of loops and/or a pile of microfibers and of fibers having a linear density greater than 1 dtex, also referred to by the term “scraping fibers”. Microfibers are known for forming an extremely dense capillary array giving them excellent ability to absorb liquids and good ability to recover small particles such as dust. In the present text, the term “microfibers” is used to designate any fibers having a linear density of less than 1 dtex.
The loops or pile formed by fibers having a linear density greater than 1 dtex give abrasive or scraping power to said maintenance item for the purpose of detaching any dirt that might be located on the surface for cleaning.
The absorption power of the microfibers is such that if they constituted the entire cleaning surface, the maintenance item being handled remotely using a head-plate of a broom would adhere so strongly to the floor for cleaning, in particular when the maintenance item is wet, that the user would no longer be able to move said item (this can be referred to as the “suction cup” effect as generated by the capillary array).
To mitigate that drawback, scraping fibers having a linear density greater than 1 dtex are arranged in alternation with said microfibers. Since the scraping fibers have a linear density that is greater than that of the microfibers, they are stiffer and they form bearing points on the “cleaning” surface enabling the maintenance item to slide over the floor surface for cleaning.
Generally, such maintenance items include on their bottom surfaces—that are to form the “cleaning” surface that comes into contact with the floor—about 50% by weight of microfibers relative to the proportion by weight of fibers on said bottom faces, the remainder being formed by fibers having a linear density greater than 1 dtex.
Such maintenance items may be laminated with a foam or they may include other absorbent textile panels arranged on their top faces.
Such maintenance items are thus limited in the quantity of microfibers that their cleaning surfaces can present and also by their fineness (or linear density in dtex). The greater the fineness of the microfibers (i.e. the smaller their linear density (dtex)), the better they absorb liquids and recover dust present on the floor, but the greater their tendency to adhere to the cleaning surface on the floor.
Furthermore, since microfibers have capacities for absorption and recovery that are greater than those of the scraping fibers, it is advantageous to seek to optimize their quantity and/or their fineness in the cleaning surfaces of maintenance items.
DE 103 27 584 discloses a cleaning item having two portions in one of its faces. The fibers covering these sections present fineness in the range 0.1 dtex to 10 dtex, and preferably in the range 0.1 dtex to 3 dtex.
EP 0 925 399 discloses a textile structure comprising a support material from which there project fibers having different finenesses and thus capable of forming up to three different zones that repeat over the surface.